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The destruction of Athens, took place between 480 and 479 BCE, when Athens was captured and subsequently destroyed by the Achaemenid Empire.A prominent Greek city-state, it was attacked by the Persians in a two-phase offensive, amidst which the Persian king Xerxes the Great had issued an order calling for it to be torched.
Greek democracy created at Athens was direct, rather than representative: any adult male citizen over the age of 20 could take part, [41] and it was a duty to do so. The officials of the democracy were in part elected by the Assembly and in large part chosen by lottery in a process called sortition.
The Second Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), often called simply the Peloponnesian War (Ancient Greek: Πόλεμος τῶν Πελοποννησίων, romanized: Pólemos tō̃n Peloponnēsíōn), was an ancient Greek war fought between Athens and Sparta and their respective allies for the hegemony of the Greek world.
To consolidate power against Cassander, Polyperchon restored Athens's democracy, as it was before the Lamian War. However, after losing the fleet one year prior, Polyperchon had to flee Macedon when in 316 BC Cassander secured control of Athens. Cassander appointed Demetrius of Phalerum as head of the administration of Athens.
The Athenian Revolution (508–507 BCE) was a revolt by the people of Athens that overthrew the ruling aristocratic oligarchy, establishing the almost century-long self-governance of Athens in the form of a participatory democracy – open to all free male citizens.
The Athenians executed the men of fighting age [24] and sold the women and children into slavery. They then settled 500 of their own colonists on the island. [25]In 405 BC, by which time Athens was losing the war, the Spartan general Lysander expelled the Athenian colonists from Melos and restored the survivors of the siege to the island.
The Thirty Tyrants' brief reign was characterized by violence and corruption. Historian Sian Lewis argues that the violence and brutality the Thirty carried out in Athens was necessary to transition Athens from a democracy to an oligarchy. [19] However, the more violent the Thirty's regime became, the more opposition they faced. [19]
While many city-states throughout the Greek world broke down into vicious cycles of civil war and reprisal, Athens remained united and democratic, without interruption, until near the end of the 3rd century BC, and democracy, albeit interrupted several times by conquest or revolution, continued there until Roman times, several centuries later. [31]